Ch.168Chapter 168 – Superhuman

In the Avici Hell prepared by the Demon King, Shin Jaehyuk faced deaths of all forms. His consciousness repeatedly faded and awakened. Each time he opened his eyes, a new death awaited him.

Murder, strangulation, beating, shooting, stabbing, gang killing, disease, crushing, trampling, falling, hanging, dismemberment, burning, beheading.

Death by poison, falling, necrosis, starvation, slipping, suffocation, drowning, explosion, overwork.

Every imaginable death, and those beyond imagination, brushed past Jaehyuk. But what was truly painful was never death itself, but being alive.

Jaehyuk opened his eyes in a living hell, having lost count of how many times he’d been here.

Before he could feel confused or bewildered, a wave of lava engulfed him. Molten metal at 1,200 degrees Celsius rushed into his nose and mouth. His lungs melted, making breathing impossible, while magma filled his stomach, burning through its walls and incinerating his organs.

Jaehyuk felt momentary relief. Ah, a violent but quick death. He preferred this kind. Better than suffering drawn out over time.

Unlike dramatic deaths, those that stretched over long periods were often more painful. Like now.

When Jaehyuk opened his eyes, there was nothing in that world. And nothing happened. No matter how much time passed, nothing changed. It was as if the concept of “change” had been removed from the world.

When no death came for a day, Jaehyuk was grateful for the respite. But when this state of non-response continued for a week, then a month, he understood why this too was a trial.

In a world with nothing and no change, just staring blankly alone made him feel his mind would collapse. Jaehyuk had to endure to avoid going mad in this world of solitude.

Jaehyuk sat cross-legged. He placed his hands together on his lap and closed his eyes. He imagined a massive rock—approximately 3,375 cubic kilometers. And he began counting time.

Once every hundred years, a small lark would fly by, rub its beak against the rock, and disappear. The rock would be worn away, almost imperceptibly. After another hundred years, another lark would come and rub its beak.

The meditation continued. He meditated for an unimaginably long time. During a period long enough for the universe to be created and destroyed multiple times, countless larks passed by the rock.

After an agonizing wait, when the final lark rubbed against the rock, the rock completely wore away. Then death came.

In this hell repeating for eternity, Jaehyuk sat in meditation. His contemplation of life and death continued. The 108 worldly desires interfered with his ascetic practice.

‘How long must I continue like this?’

One day, along with death, a heart demon entered Jaehyuk’s inner mind. The heart demon was another version of himself. It experienced the same suffering as Jaehyuk.

The heart demon expressed its pain. Fool. Why are you here like this? Before he could think of an excuse, freezing cold froze his body. Jaehyuk died.

‘Why must I suffer like this?’

The thought that entered his next consciousness was this. Perhaps it was the Demon King’s whisper, or the essence and will of this mental space itself. A voice that he couldn’t distinguish as his own or not continued to mutter.

‘Must I suffer eternally?’

He could see nothing but a pessimistic future. Tears kept flowing from his eyes. His tear ducts didn’t dry up until he died. Jaehyuk died of dehydration.

‘Is life worth this much?’

In the next hell, Jaehyuk wasn’t alone. Unfortunately, they weren’t friendly beings.

The blind, the lame, the deaf… people with various disabilities approached Jaehyuk. They tore into his unresisting body, digging and extracting organs they needed, then disappeared snickering. Again, Jaehyuk died.

‘Living is suffering. Just look at me.’

Jaehyuk’s life flashed before his mind like a panorama. How much sadness, how much pain.

A life marked by tragedy. Unwanted obligations, responsibilities, partings, sorrows.

‘If I hadn’t been born, I wouldn’t need to be sad.’

Jaehyuk opened his eyes. He was in someone’s womb. He couldn’t see anything as his eyes weren’t open, but he could hear the mother’s heartbeat.

A cool sensation touched his leg. Metal. Sharp scissors cut off his leg. Jaehyuk couldn’t scream as he had no mouth. The scissors cut off his other leg, then his arms, torso, umbilical cord, and neck without hesitation. It was a touch that felt only coldness.

When the metal forceps that finally tore through the womb crushed the fetus’s skull, Jaehyuk died.

‘What sin did we commit to be thrown into this hell?’

Given unwanted life, thrown irresponsibly into a life full of nothing but pain. And the price of neglect was always ours to bear. The heart demon whispered.

‘Remember. Even she admitted it at the end. Our former lover.’

-Sometimes, being alive is painful for some people.

Yu Seongha’s last words came to mind. Her voice echoed. The heart demon tempted Jaehyuk with the voice of his once-beloved partner and precious family. Hearing that lovely voice after so long uttering words that cursed life filled his inner mind with pessimistic and nihilistic perceptions.

Life and death repeated.

After listening quietly for a long time, Jaehyuk spoke for the first time.

“…Yes. You’re right.”

It was a signal of agreement. The heart demon listened attentively to Jaehyuk’s response.

“Being alive was painful for me.”

A shameful and difficult confession followed.

“As a child, there wasn’t a day I didn’t contemplate death. My youth was always accompanied by antidepressants.”

‘Yes, that’s right.’

“Every day I searched for God. I spent dawns in prayer seeking salvation. But there was never an answer. Because God is powerless in low places.”

‘Yes, that’s right!’

“Life and suffering always followed me like two sides of a coin. If I said there was never a temptation to find peace in death, it would certainly be a lie.”

‘Correct! Finally, you understand what I’m saying!’

The heart demon enthusiastically agreed with Jaehyuk’s confession, showing such fervent support it was almost endearing. Jaehyuk smiled slightly and said:

“However… I don’t consider being alive a regret.”

‘…Why?’

“Because I didn’t give up, I was able to come this far.”

The heart demon raged violently. Frustrated that his words weren’t getting through, it burst out in anger, spewing violent curses.

Another death came. Jaehyuk accepted it calmly.

A new hell welcomed him. On a cliff with howling winds, a long rope stretched beyond the horizon. Jaehyuk found himself standing on this precarious rope where one misstep would mean falling.

‘This is what life is! Absurd and meaningless!’

Without knowing where the rope led, Jaehyuk took dangerous steps forward. It wasn’t an ordinary rope. Made of iron, it was sharp as a blade and red-hot. With each step, the blade dug into his soles and tore his flesh.

Screaming in agony, the heart demon shouted:

‘Why are you trying so hard to cross to the other side? There’s nothing over there. Just throw yourself off the cliff! The fall is brief, but the rest is eternal!’

Without answering, Jaehyuk walked silently. After decades, he finally reached the end of the cliff. Despite enduring decades of pain to cross the precipice, as the heart demon said, there was nothing there.

“…No, there is.”

A human was there. For the first time, Jaehyuk died with a smile.

The next hell was an endlessly cycling world. Jaehyuk was born into a harmonious family, went to school, got a job, met a spouse, raised children, and eventually died. It was a happy life.

The moment he thought he died, Jaehyuk found himself back in infancy. The same hospital, the same family. He lived the same life again and died again. And then returned again.

Mistakes, regrets, life repeated hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times. Repetition breeds boredom, and when boredom matures, it becomes pain. The heart demon berated him:

‘Look! This is the reality of what you believe to be the world and fate. A world that repeats destruction and creation, repeating the inevitable. A world that just flows meaninglessly along a predetermined path!’

A world of eternal return. Humans are fickle, not made to cherish repetition. Like an old person feeling weary of time, this world only brought a sense of impermanence toward life.

‘Seeing this tedious repetition, don’t you curse inevitability!’

The heart demon shouted at Jaehyuk, now an old man confined to a hospital room. Frail and barely able to move, Jaehyuk basked in warm sunlight and smiled peacefully.

“The weather is good today too. Isn’t this day beautiful?”

Jaehyuk died.

When he opened his eyes, a vast desert stretched before him. In the scorching heat where moisture evaporated every second, it was truly a desert that dried travelers to death. An extreme environment without a single oasis for rest.

‘In life, everyone is given two paths.’

Looking straight ahead, he saw a camel walking. Between its humps, it carried a load several times its size. Whether it had a destination or knew the right direction, the camel just kept moving forward.

The heart demon explained:

‘That is one who conforms.’

Behind the camel, walking backward in its footsteps, was a lion. With an uncharacteristically defiant face, the animal had thrown away its burden and stubbornly walked against the camel’s path.

‘That is one who rebels.’

The burden carried by the camel and discarded by the lion was also presented to Jaehyuk. The heart demon demanded:

‘Which are you? Decide here!’

Jaehyuk thought for a moment but chose neither. Instead, he began to recite quietly:

“…I was once a camel. A devout paladin who never questioned the Lord’s words.”

Master Paladin. A term referring to Longinus, who was the most paladin-like of all.

“I was also once a lion. A being who resisted and fought against Elohim’s oppression.”

He recalled all his journeys from hell to heaven. He had seen the world and realized the truth.

“Now I am neither.”

Jaehyuk plopped down on the ground. Then suddenly, he began gathering sand and building a castle. Like a child playing at the beach.

“If there’s no path, can’t you walk? That’s not life.”

‘…What are you doing?’

“Creating a new option, a new path.”

‘What is it?’

Jaehyuk laughed with genuine joy.

“I am one who rejoices, one who delights, one who loves, one who is like a child.”

Under the blazing sun, a child built with sand. The higher he built, the more sand slid down the slope, making it harder to build. Sometimes due to his own mistakes, sometimes because of the wind, the sand castle would collapse, and he’d have to start over.

But Jaehyuk didn’t grieve over such troubles. What child would be sad about play! Jaehyuk enjoyed the process of building the sand castle itself. If the castle fell, he would simply build a new one. He clearly loved his fate.

How much time had passed? When the camel and lion had disappeared beyond the horizon and his lips were parched from dehydration, the sand castle was completed. The sand castle wasn’t a castle but had the shape of a tree.

The heart demon continued to rant, but its words no longer affected Jaehyuk. It realized persuasion no longer worked.

‘…I see.’

Looking at the completed great tree, the heart demon muttered quietly:

‘That’s me.’

“That’s me.”

The heart demon’s final words overlapped with Jaehyuk’s. After that, the heart demon’s voice was no longer heard.

Unlike the sage who couldn’t overcome his heart demon and split himself in two, Jaehyuk overcame his heart demon and became one with it.

Complete unification of the self. The moment he overcame the heart demon, Jaehyuk realized he could do anything. The tree sculpture made of sand became a real tree. The trunk took on a brown hue, and long green leaves swayed in the wind.

The Bodhi tree grew enormously. Its lush leaves blocked the scorching sun, creating a cool shade. Jaehyuk sat cross-legged with closed eyes under the cool shade. Under the Bodhi tree, Jaehyuk attained enlightenment.

“Taking only myself as my lamp…”

Jaehyuk died.

Jaehyuk opened his eyes.

It wasn’t a hellish landscape. Before him were the devastated Pyongyang, the dark sky, and Mara Papiyas. It was reality.

Jaehyuk looked at the Demon King, and the Demon King looked at Jaehyuk. Light flowed from between his half-open eyelids. Behind the meditating Jaehyuk, a halo formed, similar to Mara’s.

Even at a glance, it was larger than the Demon King’s. The light emanating from Jaehyuk’s halo was so strong that Mara Papiyas’s halo faded like a firefly before the sun.

Finally, the Demon King realized the outcome of the bet.

Shocked, he asked:

“…No god, no human, no one has ever passed my trial. Why… why are you unbroken?”

For Mara Papiyas, who truly believed life was suffering without doubt, the shock of seeing Jaehyuk overcome the trial was immense. To still love life after tasting all the world’s suffering—before him stood a living witness directly contradicting his beliefs and worldview.

“…How were you able to do it?”

The Demon King’s tone became respectful toward the enlightened one. It was filled with respect and awe. Mara Papiyas sought teaching.

The enlightened one answered:

“Don’t be trapped in caves; take steps forward. Stand tall in the face of absurdity. Conquer the world. Love inevitability.”

The Demon King looked as if he’d been struck. It was a way of life unimaginable to Mara Papiyas. Mara muttered blankly:

“You… you might truly be able to save this world.”

“No, salvation is something you find yourself. The existence of others only provides small help. In your most painful moment, what saves you is neither others nor gods, but yourself.”

“What is salvation?”

Asked the one who considered death, the extinction of existence, and non-birth as salvation.

The one who affirmed life answered:

“We must all become masters of our own worlds. That is salvation.”

“What is a human?”

“A human is something to be overcome. We all exist to surpass ourselves.”

“What is fate?”

“Simply what is given, nothing more, nothing less. When you do what you have chosen with your will, you will come to love even pain.”

Through this dialogue, Mara Papiyas completely acknowledged his defeat. His enlightenment was less than his opponent’s. Life is not merely something empty and painful. The one who endured all of humanity’s hell vouched for this.

“…I ask one final question.”

The Demon King knelt respectfully before the enlightened one.

“World-Honored One, is there meaning in life?”

The answer came swiftly:

“No. That’s why we build it.”

Hearing this, Mara Papiyas opened his eyes wide. Then, as if understanding everything, he closed his eyes with a peaceful smile.

“Indeed, if that is the answer of the enlightened one.”

The kneeling Demon King thrust his neck forward like a criminal awaiting beheading. Jaehyuk brought a Bodhi branch to that neck. As the branch lightly touched the neck, the Demon King’s head was cleanly severed and rolled on the ground.

The Demon King’s head and body transformed into lotus petals and scattered. The darkness collapsed.

“…Farewell then.”

It was the death of Mara Papiyas.

Standing there was neither god nor human, but an Übermensch.